


and underneath is a road that’s so steep

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Discussion of School, Ear Piercings, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28241700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: “Are you alright?” Sybil asked. Havelock hadn’t moved at all. The earring was a square piece of dark blue glass in a silver setting. Basically costume jewelry. She had boiled another needle to do the other side.
Relationships: Sybil Ramkin & Havelock Vetinari
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	and underneath is a road that’s so steep

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Numb Bears by Of Monsters and Men

Sybil Ramkin ran the needle through the flame of the candle burning beside the water basin.

“That doesn’t actually clean it that well. You have to soak it in something.”

“It was in boiling water.”

The student Assassin sitting fully clothed in Sybil’s bathtub nodded in agreement that this was probably okay. It was a hollow piercing needle that Havelock couldn’t stop thinking of as looking like a piece of bucatini pasta for very small trolls.

After the needle cooled, Sybil wiped away the residue from the flame.

“Are you ready?”

Havelock held on to the edge of the bathtub. He felt the cork Sybil held between his ear and neck. The trouble with needles was that they barely brushed the edge of his pain threshold so, where his mind would run some process to ignore a sword slash or falling off a building, a needle piercing skin was to be presented in vivid slowed-down detail. But pulling the needle completely through his earlobe and transferring to the earring properly hurt, the pain blurring out some of the focus of the image in his minds eye.

“Are you alright?” Sybil asked. Havelock hadn’t moved at all. The earring was a square piece of dark blue glass in a silver setting. Basically costume jewelry. She had boiled another needle to do the other side.

“Yeah. Just give me a minute.”

“How are you doing with the Assassins?

“My grades are perfect.”

“And?” Sybil asked because this did not answer the question at all.

“Five people dropped Merciet’s class...”

“Well, he isn’t a very nice person.”

“...Because the class was turning into an argument between me and the professor.”

Sybil stood up. “And you say your grades are perfect?”

“Yes.”

“Havelock, I think you’ve won the respect of someone who respects very few people.”

“That doesn’t sound like something to be proud of.”

“Perhaps not, but it is something to be impressed by.”

“And how have you been?”

“Lonely. Really my only company has been books. I can’t argue with teachers like you can. If I could,” she sighed, “that would at least be something.”

“Because you would get in trouble?”

Sybil looked at the tiles on the wall. There was a interlinked pattern of flowers that seemed more geometric than organic. “I don’t know. I don’t want conflict... but people seem to take contradiction as challenge even if you wrap it up in so much politeness that it’s unrecognizable.”

Havelock stood, planting his feet so he would not slip and stepped out of the tub.

“You’re like a cat.” Sybil said.

“How do you mean?”

“They sit in random containers.”

“A bathtub is a container?”

Havelock opened his arms and then hugged Sybil tightly. The pressure seemed to stabilize energy in her body that she had not previously been aware of. He leaned into her shoulder, his as yet unpierced ear touching her neck. “You can always write to me, you know. I’ll always answer.”


End file.
